Indians embracing online freelancing

Hyderabad: India is witnessing job losses across several verticals and more particularly in information technology. There is also a lot of buzz on the impact of automation and artificial intelligence on jobs in technology-dependant industries. There has always been a supply-demand gap in the job market as academic institutions had been producing more candidates than the market can take. Startups are also mushrooming which are looking for business opportunities to scale up and trying to keep minimal staff to keep their cost of operations low. With internet penetration improving, freelancing has become viable for all the stakeholders making the world small and accessible, giving a new avenue for Indian professionals.
Realising the phenomenon globally, freelancing market places have evolved catering to wider geographic markets. India with its skilled and English conversant workforce is emerging as a key hub for such activity for many freelancing platforms.

India leads

Sydney-based freelancing and crowdsourcing marketplace Freelancer.com has seen double digit growth rate in India. The country is on top with over 5 million registered users followed by the US with 3.2 million users. Within the country, Bengaluru has around 1,63,000 registered users, Chennai has 1,25,000 users, Hyderabad has 1,20,000 users, Mumbai has 1,13,000 users and New Delhi has 1,08,000 users are the top five cities.
Freelancer.com International Director Sebastian Siseles told Telangana Today, “In terms of the nature of activities, Hypertext Preprocessor based web development, Graphic Design, Website Design, HTML, WordPress, Logo Design, SEO, Internet Marketing and Mobile App Development had been the top projects that have come to Indian freelancers for execution in the last one year.” The average fee for the projects is $167 (over Rs 10,000) and it can be higher for projects that need more specialised skills. Many employers could build or market their product, and the freelancers have found flexible work options. They are mostly startups and small-medium-scale businesses (SMEs) although there are also corporates who have posted projects on the site.
Discussing trends, he said, “We’ve seen a trend where people are turning to freelancing and they rely on it as not only an additional income, but also their primary source of income. When Freelancer.com first started out, employers usually came from developed countries like USA, UK and Australia, while freelancers are commonly from developing ones like India, Philippines, Indonesia, Pakistan and Bangladesh. However, through the years, we are seeing employers from developing countries who are looking to hire freelancers, and they employ freelancers from every part of the world, even from their own countries.”
On one hand, Freelancer.com helps startups, small businesses and entrepreneurs grow their business or turn their ideas to reality by connecting them with skilled freelancers from across the globe. On the other, it provides jobs and opportunities to professionals across hundreds of fields and expertise. The platform provides access to millions of employers from all over the world who, on a daily basis, are posting thousands of jobs across hundreds of different fields and industries. There are more than 1,000 job categories so far on the site.
The marketplace currently has 53 local domains, and support 34 languages and 28 currencies. India represents the biggest market for Freelancer.com, and by recently adding the country’s most popular digital payment method, PayTM, the company welcomes a generation of users that previously didn’t have the means to transact in the online economy.

Assured payments

“To ensure that freelancers get money they deserve for the effort they have put, we always recommend the use of our Milestone Payment System in receiving payments for their projects. We highly advise freelancers to ask for a Milestone Payment first before doing any work on an accepted project. That way, they will be assured that the employer is willing to pay for their work,” he added.
On the other hand, when a freelancer requests for a Milestone Payment, the employer can create one by depositing funds for it. “We will then hold such funds until the employer and the freelancer agree that the funds should be released to the freelancer. Once an employer releases a Milestone Payment, the employer acknowledges that their awarded freelancer has completed the work fully and most satisfactorily. Freelancer.com will then disburse the Milestone Payment to the freelancer.”
“The platform has users in 247 locations globally. This means that in every single point on the earth where there’s an accessible Internet connection, we have at least one user, from India to Antarctica where we have a very few ones. Freelancer.com was launched in 2009, and rapidly became the largest freelancing and crowdsourcing marketplace by number of users and jobs posted worldwide,” he said.

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